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People Predictably

Nonlinear

According to the faculty’s new dean, the last thing our faculty does
is mechanical engineering. An interview with Prof. Oleg Gendelman,
discussing the differences between the Soviet academic and research
world and the Western one, his take on the ideal graduate, what is likely
to change in the faculty’s curriculum, and how chaos is related to all this

Noa Lutsky

ndependence, freedom, and masked yet ever-present, was behind Jews’ being
originality are at the heart of barred from the study of certain professions.
“Eventually, I decided to apply to the Moscow
I good research—according Institute of Physics and Technology, which was
to Prof. Oleg Gendelman, the most highly regarded in the former Soviet
the Faculty of Mechanical Union. It was almost self-evident that Jews
Engineering’s new dean. And he cannot gain admittance there, too—but then, in
emphasizes, “Independence is not something 1986, perestroika began. Timing is everything.”
that you receive from the others; it’s something You received your entire science education in
you take for yourself, especially in research. If Russia. To some extent, it’s an utterly different
you want it—take it. Do what you can with it.” world. What are the most prominent differences?
This is just one of the themes that guide Prof. And what would you import from there or export
Gendelman, who began his academic career in from here?
the Soviet Union, where he was born in 1969. “The former Soviet Union had a completely
Today, he identifies a connection between his different system of higher education, very rigid
professional interests, such as non-linearity and and very challenging: Each university held its
chaos, and life beyond the academic world. own very strict entrance exams—which I believe
He immigrated to Israel in 2003, already a doctor could have served the Technion well. In contrast,
of physical and mathematical sciences. Initially, the study track in Russia was predetermined,
he had wanted to be a medical doctor. “When with no choice of courses and no possibility of
I was 12, I knew that I wanted to follow in the failure in any of them; this is highly unsuitable in
footsteps of my grandfather, who was a military Israel, where students are typically older, usually
physician,” he says. “But my family gently made also have to earn a living and start a family in
it plain that, being Jewish, I had little chance of parallel to their studies. The university at which
admission into medical school. Antisemitism,

30 | MEgazine | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering